


love is a burning thing

by sabrinachill



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Happy Ending, M/M, Michael never came to live with the foster family in Roswell so they never met in high school, No Aliens, Smoking, arturo and mimi as supportive roswell citizens and not parents of liz and maria, pretty much happy all the way through actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18725632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: Alex frowns down at him. “What are you doing on my couch?”The stranger rakes a hand through his curly hair, making it stand up even more. “I don’t know. Did you kick me out of bed?”“You were never in my bed.”“You sure?” he asks, lips spreading into a slow, sly smile. “Because you definitely look like somebody I’d wind up in bed with.”Alex raises an eyebrow. “I can assure you, you’d remember it if you’d slept with me.”(aka The AU Where Michael Drunkenly Breaks Into The Wrong House And Ends Up Stealing Alex’s Heart.)





	love is a burning thing

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I whipped up for Alex Manes Appreciation Week Day 2: AU. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Title is, of course, the opening line to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”

Alex has forgotten how to live without rigid regimentation.

He’s out of the military officially, completely, with honorable discharge in hand; he’s moved to the other side of the country from his father and the air base and everything else Roswell reminds him of. His hair is longer than regulation, dark stubble dots his jaw, and last week he bought a bottle of black nail polish on a whim at the pharmacy. 

But it sits, unopened, in his bathroom cabinet. 

And every day he follows the same careful routine: up at six, followed by an hour-long workout, shower, coffee, then settling in with his computer for whatever freelance project has come his way. 

It’s quiet and ordinary and safe. He lives in a townhouse in the center of a row of identical townhouses, with a tiny manicured lawn and simple floor plan. The walls are beige; the carpet is, too. Everything smells new and antiseptically clean. 

It’s comfortable. _He’s_ comfortable.

He also can’t stop debating with himself whether he’s incredibly, unbearably _bored_ or if this dull blankness is just what contentment feels like. 

That is, until the morning five weeks later when his perfect little routine is blown all to hell by the curly-haired stranger he finds snoring on his sofa. 

Alex is simply passing through the living room on his way to the door and if it wasn’t been for the sound, he might not have noticed at all. The large picture window behind the couch stands open, letting in a pleasant, late-spring breeze, and there’s a full-grown man curled up on the dove gray couch he’d paid Pottery Barn an exorbitant amount of money for, but everything else seems normal. Nothing is missing or out of place; in fact, it seems slightly _improved,_ somehow. The chunky knitted blanket Mimi had made for him looks even softer and cozier draped over the steady rise and fall of the stranger’s chest. 

Apparently, this guy broke into his house just to take a nap. 

Alex just stares, blinking a little too much. Honestly, he has no idea how to react. He’s standing on his plush beige carpet in suburban Boston, dressed for the gym with a travel mug in his hand, phone and AirPods in the pocket of his sweatpants. This is not the sort of thing that happens to a guy like him, or a place like this, or — as far as he knows — anywhere, really.

In the end he just clears his throat, loudly.

Twice.

The man finally stirs, wincing and rubbing at his eyes with a groan. 

“Good morning,” Alex says, infusing his voice with every drop of sarcasm he can muster.

And he’s rewarded to see the man’s eyes fly open, seemingly shocked to find that he’s not alone. But he recovers quickly, plastering on a charming smile that broadens as he rakes his eyes over every inch of Alex. 

“Well, damn. I must have been a hell of a lot drunker than I thought if I managed to forget spending a night with _you_.”

And yeah, okay, the drawl and smirk and sparkling eyes make something small and unexpected spark in his chest, but Alex doesn’t show it, barely lets himself _feel_ it before crushing it small and shoving it down deep. 

And then he frowns. “What are you doing on my couch?”

The stranger rakes a hand through his curly hair, making it stand up even more. 

“I don’t know. Did you kick me out of bed?”

“You were never in my bed.”

“You sure?” he asks, lips spreading into a slow, sly smile. “Because you definitely look like somebody I’d wind up in bed with.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “I can assure you, you’d remember it if you’d slept with me.” 

Alex hadn’t meant to flirt back, hadn’t realized he still knew _how._ As far as he’d been able to tell up to this point, that particular skill had gotten blown off of him back in the Iraqi desert along with his right foot. But something about this — the bizarre situation, the early hour, the warmth in the stranger’s soft brown eyes — draws it out of the hidden depths where it had been hibernating, dormant but very much alive.

The stranger scans him again, gaze slow and heavy and heated as it drags from Alex’s laced-up running shoes to his dark, messy bedhead, then lands back on the faded Air Force t-shirt stretched across his chest.

“Oh, I can believe that, Private.”

“Captain,” Alex corrects compulsively, then shakes his head. “Retired. Also, not the point. What are you doing in my house?”

The man finally sits up, scrubbing a hand over the heavy stubble on his face and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His curls are wild and tangled and framing his face like the halo of some kind of medieval cherub. His t-shirt is rumpled from a night of sleep but Alex has the feeling it wouldn’t look decent under the best of circumstances, faded and worn to the point that a series of small holes dot the right shoulder, an abstract constellation of tanned skin shining through. He smells like leather and motor oil and whiskey; he’s still wearing a pair of beat-up cowboy boots that hit the floor with a thud when he seems to finally remember something. 

“Shit. What house number is this?”

Alex narrows his eyes. “617.”

“Shit,” the guy says again, standing, one hand raised a little in a gesture of surrender or apology or helplessness. “I live just next door in 619. I got back late and I was a little, uh, under the influence and I couldn’t find my keys and I didn’t want to sleep in the bushes again because cranky Mrs. Bishop from across the street always calls the cops on me when I do, so I just let myself in through my window...at least, I thought it was my window.” 

He takes a deep breath after his rambling, his shoulders shrugging slightly. “These places are all crammed together and they all look the same and I guess I just got, uh, confused.” He at least has the decency to blush. “My name’s Michael, by the way. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

Alex takes a moment to assess him, cataloguing his stature and checking for any potentially hidden weapons in a way that’s reflexive after a decade on duty — though he’s certain the threat level is zero. 

(To his life and safety, anyway. Potential threats to his heart, dick, personal life, well… definitely greater than zero.)

“Here,” he says, handing over the steaming mug of coffee. He bought it from the UFO Emporium in a fit of nostalgia before it shut down; it has a little green alien face printed on the front and the words “Take me to your leader” wrapping around the rim just below the lid. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

Michael lifts it to his lips and sips, his eyes drifting shut briefly in appreciation. “Thanks. I, uh, I don’t know if I’d be so accommodating to a random stranger that broke into my house.” 

“You didn’t mean me any harm,” Alex says, then smirks a little. “Besides, I’m confident I could take you if you did.”

Michael’s answering smile has an entirely different meaning coloring it. “I’m confident you could take me, too,” he drawls, innuendo dripping from his voice.

Alex just shakes his head a little, as if he could physically remove the tingling feeling curling in his gut at Michael’s words. This, whatever this is, does not fit the routine and is miles outside his carefully curated box of a life. 

So he shuts down the idea of pursuing it before it even really forms.

He’s also lost all will to workout; getting sweaty this morning is only going to remind him of how long it has been since he got sweaty with anyone else. 

“I should get to work,” he finally says, gesturing to his office upstairs. “When you finish that, just let yourself out — and feel free to use the door, this time.” 

Michael slurps loudly at the coffee again and gives him a small salute.

Five minutes later, Alex hears him washing the mug in the kitchen sink downstairs, and then the small click when the door shuts behind him.

It shouldn’t make him feel lonelier to have an intruder leave his house, but it does…at least, until he hears small sounds from the adjoining house that remind him exactly how close Michael still is.

Will always be.

Alex pinches the bridge of a nose for a second, letting himself realize exactly how screwed he is.

* * *

Two days pass before Alex sees Michael again. 

He’s sitting in his office upstairs, writing code while Brendon Urie croons at him from a pair of small speakers on his desk, when the front door of 619 opens and out tumbles Michael. 

He’s accompanied by a roiling ball of thick black smoke and the sound of a screeching smoke detector. 

Michael runs for the hose lying in his flower bed; Alex is down the stairs and out his own front door before even thinking about it. 

“Are you okay?” Alex calls over the screaming alarm, moving so quickly that he’s limping a little. 

In response, Michael just keeps coughing, holding the hose running full blast over his head, splashing water in his eyes and face. 

“I’m going to call 911,” Alex says, confused and concerned, but he’s watching Michael closely enough to see the genuine panic fill his watery eyes, the emphatic shake of his head. 

“No,” he manages to choke out. “No doctors.”

There’s a story there, Alex knows, but it’s not his place to ask about it. ( _Not yet_ , anyway, whispers some traitorous voice in the recesses of his mind.) And Michael’s alert and conscious and not actively aflame; he’s washing whatever it is off himself and his coughing is already subsiding a little.

So Alex doesn’t push. 

“I have some field medicine training,” he offers instead, speaking calm and even, his hands reaching for Michael with palms to the sky. Michael is sprawled next to the hose bib, mulch floating a little in the flooded flower bed around him, his right shoulder perilously close to Alex’s thorny rosebush. “Can I at least take a look at your eyes?”

And Michael, like a skittish horse, jerks away for a second instinctively, but he eventually nods. Alex walks over and crouches with a little awkwardness (he’s been working on this sort of movement lately, but relearning to balance with his body weight so differently distributed has proven painfully difficult) but Michael doesn’t seem to notice. 

Alex is grateful; he’s careful to hide the missing leg, terrified of pity. He certainly doesn’t want Michael to know, not with the magnetic attraction drawing him to his neighbor…even though that same whispering voice tells him that it wouldn’t be a problem. 

He cups Michael’s face carefully in his hands, angling it until the sunlight falls across his eyes just right. They’re a warm golden brown, beautiful and soft even now, with tears streaming over the angry redness of chemical irritation that paints the delicate skin around them. 

For a moment Alex forgets what he’s supposed to be doing. His thumb trails lightly over the stubbled skin on Michael’s cheek; Alex’s full lips part a little. Michael just holds perfectly still, staring back, water dripping from his curls and splattering his shoulders and Alex’s wrists. 

Alex clears his throat. 

“The skin is unbroken and I think a little of the redness is already clearing from your eyes,” he says, managing to sound far less shaken than he is. He drops his hands and doesn’t let himself think about the way his palms itch for Michael’s skin, about the way the loss echoes the phantom limb pain in his leg. “In my entirely unprofessional opinion, you’ll be okay.”

Michael laughs a little and leans back against the wall of Alex’s house, shaking his wet hair out of his face. 

“Yeah, thanks. Sorry for all the drama — experimentation gone seriously awry.”

Alex tilts his head, eyebrow raised. “Culinary or chemical?”

“Chemical,” Michael answers, “which is the problem, because clearly I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m really just a mechanical engineer — my sister-in-law is the one that’s better at the chemical stuff. But we started talking about her latest project last night and I wanted to test something and…well, I think the technical term is _kaboom.”_

“Sister-in-law?” Alex asks, finding himself wondering if Michael has a spouse despite all signs to the contrary. The idea opens a yawning pit in his stomach. 

“Yeah, my brother Max’s wife,” Michael says, and Alex hopes he doesn’t notice the way the tension slides out of his shoulders. “She’s too smart for him — for either of us apparently.” He laughs a little at his dripping self, shoving a handful of soaked curls out of his eyes.

Alex smiles, and it hasn’t escaped his notice how often he finds himself doing that around Michael. It’s not that he believes Michael to be as light and carefree as he likes to pretend; even in their limited interactions Alex has noticed that there’s a weight he tries to hide. It’s something old and familiar, something that he’s learned to bury under drinking too much and his constant movement, like if he’s still for a moment whatever he’s running from will finally catch up with him. 

But Alex knows all about the burden of old weights, and there’s so much more to Michael than whatever lurks in his past. There’s a warmth and softness to him, a daisy surrounded by a patch of weeds that strains defiantly toward the sun, and it’s so different from everything Alex knows. 

Because no mistake he ever made was allowed to be met with a laugh and self-deprecating joke. No Manes would ever sit literally soaked in failure in the broad sunlight, smiling and shrugging and letting embarrassment simply roll away. 

The idea of that kind of freedom is intriguing to Alex. Intoxicating, even. 

And it’s something he was never meant to have.

So Alex rolls his lips together and nods, walking back to his house.

* * *

That Saturday afternoon, Alex is folding laundry in his quiet living room when he sees smoke again. Across the fence dividing their back patios, gray clouds are climbing to the sky and Alex is out his back door and shouting Michael’s name before he really thinks about it. 

“Hey Alex,” Michael calls back, sounding happier and more relaxed than Alex has ever heard him. There’s the murmur of a couple of other voices and “Dancing in the Dark” is playing in the background; Alex can smell barbecue and hear the sizzle of meat on a grill. “Come on over, I’m cooking out.”

The smoke is just the grill; Alex laughs at himself a little for his panic. “No offense, but nothing about you really says ‘good cook.’”

“He’s actually not that bad,” a woman’s voice calls. “As long as you don’t mind a little lighter fluid seasoning your ribs.”

“And at least there’s enough beer that you won’t really care about the quality of the food,” a different man calls. Michael makes a loud offended sound, but laughs a second later. 

“No, I— I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Alex says, looking back at his half-folded laundry. He’s thinking about the lengthy shopping list hanging on his fridge and his detailed plans to scrub his bathroom later. 

His house looks so small suddenly, so monochromatic and sad and empty.

“You’re not intruding, Captain,” Michael calls, vibrant and alive. “I’m inviting you.”

So Alex abandons his careful plans and walks around the fence.

He meets Max and the infamous Liz The Scientist, who gives Michael endless shit after hearing Alex’s side of the experiment gone wrong from earlier in the week. And there’s acerbic Isobel and her intuitive girlfriend Maria; Alex quickly discovers that everyone is welcoming and funny and smart. 

He hears embarrassing stories from their time in high school and Max’s exciting exploits as an officer with the Boston Police Department; he learns that Michael has a Ph.D. and makes his living as a mechanical engineering professor at the local college. 

He’s both surprised at that information and also not at all — everything about Michael screams irresponsibility, yet he has that solid, steady center and that endlessly curious cleverness.

“What made you decide to pursue engineering?” Alex asks, a bead of condensation rolling down the side of his cold beer bottle and dripping onto his jeans.

“Cars, trucks, planes, trains, boats, rockets — basically, if it can move me from one place to another, I’m interested in it.”

“Not content to stay where you are?” Alex asks, and the question sounds heavier than he meant for it to.

“Never have been before.” Michael takes a pull on his beer, then looks up at Alex through his long lashes. “Though I have to admit recently discovering that Boston has its charms.”

Alex flushes and definitely does not miss the pointed glances shared between Michael’s family at the flirtation. 

The afternoon passes into evening in a blur of messy happiness, BBQ sauce all over fingers and dripping on paper plates, too many beers and too loud of laughter, the endless teasing and reminiscing and deep joy that comes from spending time with family that you truly love. 

It should make Alex feel excluded, cold, and envious; these sorts of things always have. But there’s something too infectious about Michael, about the easy way he’s always reaching for Alex’s shoulder or arm or waist, about his broad smile and glittering eyes. He somehow makes Alex a part of the family, not a spectator sitting outside. 

He has a warmth and light that thaws the last of Alex’s long frozen heart, that reminds him of a lost kid who just wanted to make music and live in a world free from his father’s hatred. 

It’s the first time he’s felt like a part of something good since half his unit was blown up on the other side of the world, and Alex falls asleep that night with Springsteen singing in his ears and the lingering memory of Michael’s touch wrapped around his shoulders.

* * *

“Shit,” Alex mutters, twisting the key in the ignition for the eighth time with no response other than a cloud of steam emanating from his car’s hood. He hits the steering wheel with the heel of his palm, his eyes squeezing shut. 

When he opens them, Michael is right next to the car, peering at him through the window. 

“Pop the hood,” he calls through the glass. 

And after just a minute or two bent over the steaming engine (during which Alex may or may not have appreciated the way his faded jeans hung around his sharp hips, or the flexing of his back through his dark green grease-stained t-shirt), Michael finds the problem. 

“Okay try it now,” he says, and Alex climbs back behind the wheel to follow his direction.

The engine catches on the first try, revving to life. 

Alex can’t help but notice that Michael seems to have that effect on everything. 

“Thanks,” Alex says when Michael walks back around to his window. The cloud of steam soaked into Michael’s curls, making them frizz wildly around his face.

“It’s just temporary — it’ll get you through today but you’re going to need a new part. I’ll pick it up this afternoon.”

“How much do I owe you?”

Michael waves him off. “Consider it my payment for the impromptu room and board last week.”

And all Alex wants to do is stay, to say something else, anything else, _everything_ else— but he really does need to go.

So he just reaches through the window and wraps his hand around Michael’s, giving his long fingers a lingering squeeze. “Thank you, Michael.”

Michael’s hand squeezes right back. 

“Any time, Captain.”

* * *

Alex wakes with a shout, sweat-soaked and tangled in his sheets. 

He’s not even sure what the nightmare was — between his father and the war, his subconscious has a plethora of choices. But he knows from the way his heart is racing and the throbbing that’s started up in his temples that he won’t be recovering from it enough to go back to sleep any time soon. 

He throws the blankets aside and shoves his hair off his forehead. The house feels cloistered and stuffy; he needs the cool night air on his skin. 

Alex doesn’t bother with the prosthetic. He just grabs his crutches from their spot next to the bed and makes his way with practiced ease to the front door. 

Gulping in air, the darkness is still and silent and unbroken...until the tiny flame flares to life on the porch next door. 

“Michael,” Alex breathes. He didn’t mean to say anything out loud; it’s three am and just because their houses are close it doesn’t mean they should bother one another every time they’re outside. 

Besides, he didn’t want to call attention to himself; he’s been so careful to keep Michael from noticing that he’s missing a leg. 

But it’s too late. Moonlight shines on messy curls as Michael makes his way across the few feet separating their front steps and Alex hastily sinks into one of the two chairs on his porch, leaning the crutches against the wall behind him and hoping they’ll remain hidden in the darkness. 

“Hey,” Michael says in greeting, his voice a little husky, his hand waving with a lit cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Alex watches it arc through the air like a dancing firefly. “Uh, sorry,” Michael mumbles. “I can put it out if it bothers you.”

“No, it’s fine. Actually,” Alex says, reaching a hand toward it, “can I, uh—“

“Oh sure,” Michael answers, handing the cigarette over. 

Alex wraps his lips around the filter and inhales. He hasn’t smoked since his last deployment and the taste brings back memories of sand and sweat and blood and fire; he squeezes his eyes shut against them and focuses on the faint taste of Michael’s minty toothpaste on the filter. 

The pain recedes, replaced by the memory of Michael’s curls shining under the sun. 

“Thanks,” Alex says, smoke curling from his lips as he hands it back. 

“Didn’t know you smoked,” Michael says, taking a drag, the tip flaring bright orange against the darkness. 

“I don’t,” Alex answers. “Not really. It just looked good.”

“I don’t really either,” Michael says, knocking the ash from the end with a practiced flick that belies his words. “Just sometimes when I can’t sleep. It gives me something to focus on, I guess. Gives my hands something to do.”

Michael is so vulnerable here tonight, all his cocky swagger stripped away by the early hour. He’s just a man laid bare in the blackness.

And Alex has never liked him more.

“I get that,” Alex answers. “I don’t sleep so well either.”

Michael’s eyes flick to the part of his sweatpants that hang loose from Alex’s stump, but only for a fraction of a second. And nothing crosses his face that looks like pity, or sadness, or even concern. He’s a mechanic cataloguing a difference in design, and nothing more.

Something tight and painful loosens a little in Alex’s chest at that, easing, a few brittle pieces cracking off and dissolving away.

“Well,” Michael says softly, “maybe we can spend our nights not-sleeping together, then.”

Alex smirks, and even in the faint, silvery moonlight he can see the flush bloom on Michael’s cheeks.

“I mean—” Michael stammers, “uh, I mean, I wasn’t trying to imply—“

Alex shifts in his chair so he can nudge Michael’s bare foot with his. “I know what you meant, Guerin. And, yeah. That sounds nice, not sleeping with you.”

Michael leans back in the chair and takes another long drag, blowing the smoke out in a slow, smooth line that obscures the world beyond him for a second. 

Alex can see Michael, and nothing else.

* * *

Alex was never allowed to want things for himself, so he never learned how. 

How to recognize the itch in his fingers, the way his eyes are drawn to Michael time and again, the magnetic pull in his chest like waves beating themselves tirelessly against a shore, crashing and falling flat to the earth in an endless cycle.

So it takes him far too long to recognize those feelings, to give them names. Names like want. And craving. And _desire_. 

And then it takes even longer to decide to act on them.

Because the only kind of love Alex knows is a battle. A war. A bloody fight where no one wins, they just strike and wound and suffer over and over until someone surrenders. He knows that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

He’s just not sure he’s capable of anything else.

But he’d gladly surrender to Michael; he’d flay himself open and fall down at Michael’s feet — if he could figure out how to do that. How to be brave, to be better than his father or his brothers ever dreamed he could be.

To truly be a real Manes man. 

* * *

“Come over for dinner tonight,” Alex says, calling down to Michael’s feet poking out from beneath the jacked-up front end of some classic muscle car.

Michael slides out. He’s shirtless and sweating in the midday heat, a smear of grease over his left eyebrow. 

“That an order, Captain?” he asks with a cocky grin.

“N-no,” Alex stammers, blinking too fast. He’d rehearsed this moment all morning, but he hadn’t factored in the one-two punch of Michael’s chest hair and gleaming muscles. It’s got him staggering a little bit. “Just an invitation.”

Michael raises a hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sunshine, studying Alex for a moment before smiling again, a little softer this time. “Okay, that sounds nice. What time?”

“Seven?”

Michael waves a wrench at him, seemingly oblivious to Alex’s monumental act of bravery. 

“I’ll see you then.”

* * *

It’s nothing fancy — chicken enchiladas smothered in both green and red chile sauce, just like Arturo taught him to make during the summers he worked at the Crashdown. 

But Michael’s face lights up as soon as he walks through the door. 

“That smells amazing,” he says, and grows even more delighted once he sees the dish. “Christmas style! Nice.”

Alex nods. “I haven’t heard anyone call it that since I left home.”

“I grew up in New Mexico,” Michael says, popping a chip into his mouth and talking around the crumbs. “Deep down I think I’ll always believe that all food is better when served with red and green chile sauce.”

Alex freezes, stunned at this new piece of Michael’s past. “What part of New Mexico?”

And Michael pales a little, in a way that makes Alex regret asking a seemingly innocuous question. “Albuquerque, mostly,” he answers, trying for nonchalance and failing miserably. 

Alex just makes a vague gesture to himself and says, “Roswell.”

Michael smiles, tightly. “Small world.”

“Maybe not,” Alex says with a shrug and an attempt to turn the conversation. “We had to wait until we both wound up on the other side of the country to meet, after all.”

Michael visibly relaxes, seizing the new topic. “How do you like Boston?”

“It’s old and cramped and cold and damp; it’s as different from New Mexico as it could be.”

Alex busies himself plating their food but he can still feel Michael studying him like another of his science experiments. 

“And that’s exactly why you chose it,” he eventually concludes.

(Correctly, of course.)

Alex presses his lips together and nods. “My childhood was… not easy. I’m happy to have left all reminders of it behind.”

“Me too,” Michael says, a softness to his face that shows that he understands better than Alex would ever want anyone to. But Michael shakes it off quickly, raising his beer. “To new beginnings.”

Alex smiles and clinks their bottles together. 

Dinner is easy and pleasant; they laugh and tell stories and it feels a little backwards, like they know each other too well at this point for something that feels like a first date, but it’s also kind of perfect.

And it doesn’t end until late, until Michael lingers on his front porch with an easy smile and heat in his brown eyes, looking at Alex from beneath weighted eyelids. He rests a hand on Alex’s waist as Alex reaches for his neck and their lips meet in a soft, warm kiss that promises so much more. 

“Goodnight, Captain,” Michael murmurs, his mouth still so close that the words brush against Alex’s lips.

“Goodnight, Guerin.”

Michael practically skips back to his door; Alex tries and fails to fight the enormous grin lighting up his whole face.

* * *

But he still can’t sleep. 

Which is how he finds himself standing on his front porch at three in the morning again, eyes closed, desperately drawing the cool night air into his lungs, hoping the darkness will wash over him and take away the vague sense of discomfort that never seems to drift too far away.

He doesn’t see Michael walking over to him, but he can _feel_ it. Sparking, snapping electricity across his skin, a liquid warmth pooling in his chest, that pleasant buzzing feeling he knows only as _Michael_.

Neither of them speak. Michael just drops his cigarette and crowds Alex up against his front door, fingers clenching his shirt, mouth greedy and desperate as it claims Alex’s. 

He fumbles behind him for the handle and they stumble back into the warm darkness of his house, Michael kicking the door closed behind him, Alex already tugging at the hem of his t-shirt.

He starts heading for the stairs to the bedroom but Michael has other ideas, tugging him toward the couch. 

“You really have a thing for my sofa,” Alex murmurs as Michael pulls him down into his lap, remembering how much he wanted him even then, the first time they met, when Michael was a trespasser and a stranger. 

Except that it never actually _felt_ like Michael was a stranger at all. 

“It’s the best thing I’ve found in a long, long time,” Michael answers with his face hidden against the side of Alex’s neck, clearly no longer talking about the couch, the words a confession kissed into his skin. 

“Yeah,” Alex says, gently tugging Michael’s face away until he can look at his eyes in the pale silvery moonlight. “It’s incredible.”

And then they’re kissing again and slowly peeling away the last of their clothes, torn between the desperate craving for each other and wanting to take this slow, to learn every line and curve. 

Each touch is flame, burning, scorching, building to a raging inferno that Alex knows will consume him and change him; it will be a different version of himself that rises out of the ashes.

And that’s good. He’s ready to transform.

He’s ready to let it all burn.

* * *

Alex wakes up alone on the couch the next morning. 

And he spends a solid six seconds in a dizzying spiral of disappointment, certain that he’d done something wrong, that he had been deluded in thinking this had meant more than it did, that maybe his family was right after all and he’s weak and flawed and destined to be alone—

—until he looks up and sees Michael walking in from the kitchen. He’s barefoot, his jeans slung low around his hips, and he’s got Alex’s alien mug in his hand. It’s full and steaming and Michael offers it to him in a perfect reflection of the first morning they met. 

Alex’s fear washes away with the first sip. 

Everything feels circular and whole, complete and full. Michael is standing in the center of his world as an anchor, a fixed point, a solid core. The light of the morning sun seems drawn to him, bathing him in golden warmth. 

He smiles down at Alex, and the universe is suddenly brand new and shining with promise. 

* * *

Michael brings Chinese take-out home for dinner and they eat it straight out of the containers on Alex’s couch, binging some sci-fi show about aliens on Netflix. Alex’s head rests against Michael’s shoulder and Michael is slowly combing his fingers through Alex’s dark strands, the press of his fingertips against Alex’s scalp calming and peaceful.

This is everything Alex never dreamed he’d get. Everything that dumb kid with his guitar had hoped for, every possibility he thought his family and the military had burned away. Softness and safety, easy affection and blazing passion.

He has no idea how he was lucky enough to have happiness literally break into his house and take over his life, but he will never stop being grateful for it. He’d kept himself locked down too tightly, his lines drawn so narrowly; he’d have never gone out and found it on his own. 

Joy hooks itself around his ribs and pulls so hard it’s almost painful; he just burrows farther into Michael’s arms and holds on with every bit of strength inside him.

Heaven. He’s certain that he must have found his way to heaven.

* * *

And then he wakes up in hell.

It’s two days later and they’re spending their first night apart, Alex having reluctantly sent Michael off to a baseball game with Max they’d bought tickets to long before either of them knew the other existed. It’s now late, or really early, actually, and Alex wakes with a start, the burning smell of smoke in his nostrils. 

He thinks at first that it’s just another nightmare, a lingering artifact from dreaming of the Humvee on fire, but then he sees the tendrils of smoke snaking in around an electrical socket on the far wall.

He drops to the floor and crawls to the wall, laying his palm flat against the plaster for a moment before yanking it away again, the heat nearly unbearable. 

It reminds him of the explosion in Iraq, of pain and horror and trauma and loss and he’s paralyzed with it for a long moment; he would swear he can feel the grit of sand on his skin and see the shine of exposed wet bone in the desert sun. He can’t move, he can’t _breathe_ , his chest too tight and the smoke too hot and he’s going to die here on the pristine floor of his boring house in his quiet little life— 

—and then it finally registers that the fire is coming from the wall he shares with Michael’s house. 

And that means Michael is in danger. 

He hates that he has to waste time strapping on the prosthetic but he’s so much faster with it than the crutches, and he wants to keep his hands free in case he has to drag Michael from the burning building. His shaking fingers fumble with the buckles and he’s swearing and crying and sweating from the heat and then he’s finally FINALLY to his feet and running down his stairs. 

Tongues of flame have worked their way out of the wall and are licking at the air uncomfortably close to his front door, but Alex just charges through them, coughing and choking on the smoke burning in his chest. He stumbles out into the clean night air, greedily gulping it into his lungs. 

Flames shoot out in a near-perfect line between his porch and Michael’s, racing up the siding to the roof. It’s as if the house was leaping through a ring of fire and got caught midway.

He runs as fast and close as he can, his breath ragged and loud, the fire like a wall of heat pressing against his skin, its light against the black night a hideously brilliant orange. 

He climbs the steps to the porch in his awkward, sideways stride, ready to fight his way through the flames twisting dangerously close to Michael’s front door—

—when the door is yanked open, Michael running out and straight into his arms.

“You’re okay,” Alex murmurs, squeezing Michael to his chest, his palms pressing flat against Michael’s shoulder blades.

“Oh, thank god,” Michael exhales beside his ear at the same time.

They stumble out to the street with their arms still wrapped around one another, helpless to do anything except watch it burn, sirens wailing ever closer as fire trucks speed toward them.

* * *

And, in the end, there wasn’t that much destruction at all.

“The fire was contained to the dividing wall between your homes,” the firefighter tells them, his helmet tipped back on his head, a few tendrils of light brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. “And it hasn’t done any structural damage as far as we can tell. You’ve got some cleaning up ahead of you, but you should be able to get back in there tomorrow — of course, you’ll be roommates until you get a contractor out here to put that wall back up.”

The fireman trudges off to finish packing up his equipment and Alex and Michael simply stand at the edge of the road, watching the sun rise over the smoking roof of their shared homes. All of this, everything they feel for each other, everything they’ve built together — it all started over Michael’s drunken confusion between their two houses. 

And now a freak accident has combined the two into one.

“Think this was the universe trying to tell us something?” Michael asks, his arm looped around Alex’s waist.

“I don’t know,” Alex answers, turning to look at him, embers burning in his dark eyes. “But I think we should leave the wall down.”

Michael’s smile is broad and brilliant; to Alex, it shines brighter than the coming dawn. Alex tips his forehead to rest against Michael’s; they’re both so happy that they’re shaking a little. 

“Yeah,” Michael breathes against his skin. “Best not to tempt fate.”

Alex tips forward those last few inches and kisses Michael; he doesn’t stop for a long, long time. 


End file.
